


(Don't) Need Your Love

by quake_quiver



Series: Ten Trails Challenge: Trail 2 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean feels abandoned, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Pre-Series, Sam Winchester Leaves for Stanford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quake_quiver/pseuds/quake_quiver
Summary: He aches for Sam, but his baby isn’t coming back. His baby abandoned him. Dean has known since he was four years old that he would never know how to live without Sam. And now that day is here, and Dean doesn’t know where to start.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: Ten Trails Challenge: Trail 2 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953442
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40
Collections: Ten Trails Whump Challenge 2020





	(Don't) Need Your Love

**Author's Note:**

> This was for today's prompt of "abandoned." Took that very loosely here. Enjoy!!

Dean wakes with his head hammering. He rolls over with a groan, expecting Sam to whisper some snarky comment at him, and is met with silence. Where he expects his arm to fall over Sam’s chest, he meets cold bedsheets. He can hear John snoring in the other bed, but there’s no sound next to him.

Dean sits up in a blind panic. It makes his head spin, and a rush of last night’s rotgut threatens to make a reappearance, but all he’s concerned about is finding Sam.

Sam, who should be in bed with him, but isn’t. Sam, who never goes AWOL and always at least lets Dean know where he’s going and when he’ll be back. Sam, who Dean needs as badly as breathing.

Sam, whose duffel bag is gone. Sam, whose shaving kit isn’t messily sprawled over the motel sink. Sam, whose laptop is missing from the tiny table against the window, and Sam, whose watch isn’t on the nightstand.

Sam, who left them last night to go to Stanford.

Dean pulls in a sharp breath. His chest hurts. He stumbles out of bed, out of the motel room, and vomits into the bushes, and when he comes back, he goes straight for a beer.

Maybe he’ll drink himself to death, but Dean isn’t sure he really cares.

Sam is gone. Off to California, to become a lawyer, of all things. Sam left. He left Dean behind.

Dean can still hear the anger in his baby brother’s voice. The certainty. He was determined to leave them behind, and nothing John or Dean said changed his mind.

Sam. Sammy. The most important person in Dean’s life, the one thing he could never live without. Dean’s most perfect, most beautiful dream. Gone. Told to never come back.

Dean hates their father for that. He would welcome Sam back in a heartbeat, with open arms, open sheets, open legs, open mouth, open hands. It has been barely a night, and Dean already aches for his brother’s voice. He aches for Sam’s touch, those long, steady fingers. He aches for Sam’s young, eager mouth, and the bounce of his soft hair.

He aches for Sam, but his baby isn’t coming back. His baby abandoned him. Dean has known since he was four years old that he would never know how to live without Sam. And now that day is here, and Dean doesn’t know where to start.

He only swallows some water and a painkiller because he knows that’s what Sam would give him. He chases that down with more beer, but then he takes a shower, like Sam would want him to do, and he shaves, because he’s getting just to the side of stubbly that irritates Sam more than pleases him.

He forgets, for a moment. When he opens the bathroom door, he expects to find his eighteen-year-old brother sprawled across the bed, all six-foot-four of him, soaking in the remnants of Dean’s body heat. Sam’s hair would be sticking up in a dozen directions, and Dean would go over to the bed and sneak him a kiss or three before John woke up.

The bed is empty. Dean’s throat feels raw.

Nothing is right. John wakes, and seems to feel that going about business as usual is the good approach here. He doesn’t say a word to Dean other than to tell him to be ready to go in fifteen.

Dean doesn’t need the warning. He’s already ready. Has to be, because he’s gotten used to having to poke and badger his little brother out of bed so they could get going on time, and Dean couldn’t be getting ready and tickling Sam’s feet or ripping blankets away at the same time.

Dean almost forgets to repack his duffle. That’s usually what Sam does, every night, before they go to bed, because he knows Dean will forget things in the room if he doesn’t.

With every wayward possession that Dean shoves back into his duffel, his throat gets a little tighter. The amulet Sam gave him bangs against the hollow of his throat as he stands up, and Dean can’t take it anymore. He rips it off and buries it at the bottom of his duffel, then zips the thing up and stomps out to Baby.

The duffel gets tossed in the trunk. Dean drops into the passenger seat and sinks low, so he can rest his head back against the top of the bench. He waits for Sam’s fingers to start teasing at his hair, or to feel Sam’s knees pressing against the back of his seat, but there’s nothing. How could there be? There’s no Sam.

When they pull away from the motel five minutes later, Dean wonders how he’s even supposed to hunt without Sam. Because John may be John, and Sam may be Sam, but Dean isn’t Dean without Sam.

He stares at the road, leans his head against the window, and closes his eyes. Maybe when he wakes, this will have all been some twisted dream.


End file.
